REALLY SAFE SEX
(C)1991 Alan M. Schwartz
The Los Angeles school system is administratively contorted and
publicly spasming. It is paralyzed and wide-eyed with terror.
The newspapers paint spilled managerial gore with a broad brush.
Parents' faces bloat with blood as they bellow with outrage,
fists balled and smiting the air, lungs raw with echoed fury.
Magic Johnson has admitted that he got a dose, AIDS no less, and
suddenly the fountainhead of all those pregnant female high
school dropouts has become apparent! Pubescent boys and girls,
acting against the council, wisdom, fears, and threats of their
parents (who would never, ever themselves ever... but I digress)
have been, ah, doing it. Goodness! What is even worse, mandated
AIDS instruction will not only explicitly explore in exquisite
detail the many spectacular facets of oral, anal, homosexual and
other kinky diversions, but will mention in passing what husbands
and wives do to have babies . This will not be tolerated!
Suppose after viewing textbooks, color slides and high resolution
VHS movies brimming with genital warts, lymphogranuloma, scrotal
abscesses, prolapsed rectums, gonorrheal pus, uterine fibromas,
syphilitic chancres, hemorrhoids, cancerous prostates, Kaposi's
sarcoma, urethritis, pulmonary candidiasis, pustulant Bartholin's
glands, trichomoniasis, suction abortions, breech births,
Caesarean sections, hysterectomies, and the various other
audiovisual aids carefully designed to inculcate the newly
pubescent teenager into adult responsibilities, your sons or
daughters decide to take this newly won knowledge and try it out
for themselves! The schools are even supplying condoms! The
ever vigilant parent knows what exotic and stimulating, and
disgusting, behavior is precipitated by the mere sight of a foil
condom package. Perhaps your son will not stop at one. Perhaps
he will indulge in wearing three or five, and then leave your
compassionate home to troll the streets looking for a fallen
woman, a parents' daughter (!) with whom to exact his penalties!
Exclamation points aside, I find it hillarious. Thirty years of
debate have been logged concerning what is proper in the way of
sex instruction. We all agree upon the intrinsic value of
explaining to nascent men and women newly brimming with hormonal
storms what their gonads do and how to avoid involving a
microbial or fetal third party in their explorations. The
formidable rate of teenage pregnancy is either incontrovertible
evidence that our offspring are just like ourselves, or that an
irreparably Dionysian deity is taking some mighty presumptive,
and sloppy, liberties with our daughters. The syph and the clap
are resolved with a visit to the doctor. Teenage pregnancies
have been endemic since the founding of this Republic, and always
tragically resolved. Now your immediate descendants have the
opportunity to catch a taste, and die.
The school budget of the State of California has grown beyond all
rational measure. Billions upon billions of dollars have
disappeared into an infrastructure which is remarkably static. A
school once built persists for decades. Textbooks are reusable.
Salary, perquisite, benefit, and pension outlays are predictable.
The governor stokes our tax monies into this glowing furnace, the
California lottery pumps in a billion dollars more, the Federal
government dumps more monetary fuel into the firebox of learning,
and we never seem to be able to generate much heat.
Remarkably, as more local, state, Federal intervention and money
has arrived, the product of our schools has decayed in quality.
As thousands of Masters degrees granted in education have
dissected each minute thread of the process and examined it to
its constituent atoms, we have grown hopelessly muddled in how to
usefully teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. As legions of
psychologists and child developmentalists have unraveled the
skein of maturation and intellectual development, we are beset by
an increasing incidence of learning disabilities, dyslexia, and
emotionally fragile children.
The answer to thwarting teenage sexuality is operationally
obvious. Have the psychologists divine the best technique for
its introduction. Have the educators fabricate and execute the
ultimate syllabus. Interface with our elected legislators to
make mandatory California State Sex Education from first grade
onward, one hour each day, with quizzes, tests, finals and
standardized testing. When high school arrives 90% of the school
population will be disgusted virgins, and the other 10% will be
incapable of finding their own, or another's frenulum using both
hands. The same system that generates 30% dropouts, and another
20% graduated who cannot read their diplomas or make change of a
dollar, will guarantee that your sons and daughters are equally
safe from functional sexual knowledge or desire. Either that, or
we must treat them like adults. Or they will die.